Curtiss p-40b Warhawk and Mitsibushi A6M Zero

Hello again!
In this post I am going to talk about the two planes mentioned in the title. This is in commemoration of the Japanese attack on pearl harbor on the 7th of December 1941. The attack lasted two hours where the Japanese destroyed 20 ships, 200 US airplanes and killed 2,000 US soldiers while wounding another 1,000. The next day President Franklin D. Roosevelt called for a vote in congress whether to  declare war on Japan. Congress agreed and three days later Germany and Italy declared war on the US as well. The US Curtiss p-40b Warhawk is thought by many to be one of the most important fighters in early world war 2. 13,738 were produced and were owned by the USAF, RAF, the French Air Force and the Soviets. However the Warhawk was later surpassed by the Grumman F6F Hellcat and the F4U Corsair. The Mitsubishi A6M Zero on the other hand was a symbol of the power of Japans naval forces. The Zero was famous for its maneuverability and it being the first ship based plane to be able to surpass land based aircraft.
These two planes come by Airfix in Dogfight Doubles set and comes at a very reasonable price of £17.99 as the set has two planes and it a gift set (So it includes paints,glue, brushes and in this case a stand).
First I will talk about the Curitss Warhawk. The instructions involve the old tooling and the instructions look complicated at first glance due to lots of options. It also needs a lot of painting before construction. All the pieces fit together neatly and I did not have to use any model filler, however to give it a better finish model filler may have to be used. It is just the scale but I have personally always thought that the Curtiss Hawk looks a bit out of proportion with a very large cockpit. The model is covered in panel lines especially on the bottom of the wings (which is why the instructions look complicated), which enamel washes would work well with. I decided to not do any weathering on the model though.

The Mitsubishi Zero has a very detailed cockpit and in fact has 3 decals for the instrument panel. The plane also has the option to become a fighter bomber if you choose to add a bomb, there are also options for the wingtips to be bent and a choice to drill for a stand. However I did not need any model filler. The weird thing with the Mitsubishi Zero is that the front of the plane is separate from the rest of the fuselage, however it does look fine when it's joined to the fuselage. Even though the paint scheme is quite simple with only a few large decals, it looks brilliant when they are all on. I have also hung it from the ceiling in a dive bomb position which give a nice look even with no weathering.

Thanks again for reading my Blog!